Risk management

S. Clay Sparkman
This issue nearly always comes up in early conversations with new potential investors. Working with private money investors, we are able to fund loans in two different ways.
(1) Single loan/single investor – This is probably most common. It is quite simple. A potential investor evaluates a loan, and if she chooses to do [...]

S. Clay Sparkman
Will Amazon’s HQ2 sink Seattle’s housing market?
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/will-amazons-hq2-sink-seattles-housing-market/
Probably not much, but it should pump up the markets in NYC and DC even furthur.
Best,
Clay
- Clay (clay@privatemoneysource.com, 503-476-2909)
Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964. Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker [...]

Clay Sparkman
I first wrote and published this piece in its original form in September of 2009. I am of the firm belief that the key to success (defined as: having fun and maximizing your return, two closely correlated phenomena), is rigorous and comprehensive vetting of the loan proposal. If you do this right, the rest [...]

Clay Sparkman
Most of my discussions on this blog have to do with private money investing, and trends related to such.
I cam across a Lifehacker article recently–one that I had saved in The Pocket to read *later* (if you know what I mean), and was reminded that before one can make sensible private money investing decisions/choices, [...]

Clay Sparkman
Of particular interest to private money investors is to analyze and spot potential trends in real estate pricing. I recently posted an article, Three potentially useful indicators of the likely movement of property values, which proposed three potential indicators to watch.
The following article, Unlike prices, real estate jobs not back at peak, published in [...]

Clay Sparkman
I first posted this article in August of 2009. That was right about when I was just getting started with the blog. It is hard to believe that it has been nearly seven years now. At any rate, I feel that this article deserves a second look (or a first look, if you are [...]

Clay Sparkman
I thought that this recent article in The National Real Estate Investor would be worth sharing with the private money investors in this group. It certainly rings true with those of us at Fairfield, as we have had to work with our investors to adapt our programs and strategies to a changing market (becoming [...]

Clay Sparkman
Any good private money investor should be attempting to assess whether property values are rising, falling, or holding in the area of his/her latest potential investment. After all, the core issue when assessing investment risk is LTV, and if the “V” part of “LTV” falls during the time of your investment, your investment is [...]

Clay Sparkman
This article was originally published, on The Private Money Broker Blog. on 8/9/10. Some 5+ years later, I feel it is worthy to be modified slightly and published again. Whatever you do in the real estate business, I highly recommend that you give this post a good read.
The [...]

Clay Sparkman
This article was originally published, on The Private Money Broker Blog. on 8/9/10. Some two and a half hears later, I feel it is worthy to be modified slightly and published again. Whatever you do in the real estate business, I highly recommend that you give this post a good read.
The most [...]

Clay Sparkman
We’ve been getting quite a few calls from new investors lately who are interested in investing in trust deed secured loans. This makes a certain amount of sense to me, as a number of factors are lining up to enhance the attractiveness of this type of investing. The factors I have in mind include [...]

Clay Sparkman
As you all know, sometimes we have to be creative to get loans done in this market. One of the most critical aspects of any loan (as you well know) is the Loan to Value ratio, and there are often options for reducing the LTV to make the deal more attractive.
For purchases, the seller [...]

Clay Sparkman
We’ve been through nearly 3 ½ rough years in the real estate market—and projections seem to indicate that we will finally see clear up-turn in the second half of this year, but no one really knows for sure. We have managed to survive this down-time (thus far) and continue doing loans even in the [...]

Clay Sparkman
The national economy is in a state of confusion and the local economy is in a state of confusion. So what does this mean for the market for investing in trust deed based loans?
Well of course nobody really knows–and this is just my take on it–but here goes: First of all, let’s talk briefly [...]

Clay Sparkman
I just recently finished reading The Greatest Trade Ever, the 2009 book by Wall Street Journal reporter Gregory Zuckerman. It is a terrific read. I really enjoyed it. It evolves primarily around John Paulson, and tells the story of how he managed to make billions of dollars for himself and his hedge fund investors [...]

Clay Sparkman
Colloquialisms are funny things. We use them pretty much every day in our speech and in our writing and yet most of us, I suspect, though we know the meanings of the expressions, frequently don’t know why the individual words have come to mean what they mean. Take for example: “Don’t look a gift [...]

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About

This blog deals with all aspects of investing in private money loans and hard money loans secured by trust deeds and real property, including underwriting, risk assessment, loan servicing, and workout/recovery.

Bio

I am Vice President of Fairfield Financial, and I have been coordinating private money loan transactions since 1992. I hold an MBA degree from Portland State University and a BS in Economics and Computer Science from the University of Oregon. I have two active blogs: The Private Money Investor and The Private Money Broker.